-
About
News, updates and jet-lagged commentary on my work as creative director, writer and consultant specialising in design, urbanism, open source methodologies, and other topics that seemed like a good idea at the time.
Publications
Media Coverage
“The next revolution is going to be a revolution of ideas”
Posted on January 4, 2009
Filed Under ideas | Leave a Comment
For those of you who have attended one of my talks, you’ll have heard this quote before. It is from the late, great Bill Hicks and is usually the jumping off point from the foundation of my talk into the exploration of new ideas. So it’s a fitting quote to begin 2009 with here, as it serves the same function: pushing off from the past and into the new ideas ahead.
I’m becoming bored with pure aesthetic. That’s the sentiment the last gasps of 2008 left me with. We’ve reached our saturation point as commercial and cultural consumers of objects and visuals. What remains is for us to engage with our physical, economic and commercial realities in new ways – and ideas are the most powerful vehicle we have for engagement. They are perhaps the most enduring commodity we have as a society, and increase in value exponentially when they are:
Sustainable
For me, sustainability – in terms of ideas – is about the engagement with the idea behind a project, initiative or product, and its durability. If you create something that is only a beautiful aesthetic, then you have just another object or visual. More stuff. Create a powerful idea for ongoing engagement, whether physical or cerebral, and you’re creating sustainable relationships between individuals and the work. For example, IKEA is spreading popular, adequately designed furniture and products, but it’s just more stuff. IKEA Hacker, however, is the idea that keeps the brand and its products sustainable in terms of fresh engagement and independent connection. Yet the idea didn’t come from IKEA. And therein lies the beauty of this particular idea.
Cross-pollinating
I once asked Choreographer Bill T Jones about the inspiration for one of his works I was particularly moved by. He said “I was in the Met and saw a painting by Hans Hofman, and thought ‘I’d like to create a dance that moves the way that painting looks’.” When you only get your ideas from your own field of reference or profession, you do nothing but work in loops that get tighter and smaller with each round of introspection. Regardless of your discipline, go outside of it to find the next idea.
Generative
I am endlessly enthused and shamelessly addicted to Make, Instructables, Readymade… the list goes on. The reason? At the heard of each project documented is a new idea generated by the public. Whether it is how to create a new object out of seemingly non-associated pieces, or instructions on how to modify Object A into an improved Object B, it is ideas made real – and with each engagement by the public, the project and idea grows, spreads and is developed more. Life is a 24/7 research and development workshop, and its on sites like these that you begin to see the product of the R&D.
So let’s have some fun in 2009 going after some new areas of thought and exploration. The focus of this blog will shift slightly to being a vehicle for highlighting ideas I want to share, along with the usual news, updates and the tragic bits of ego feeds. Project-wise, first up for me is a fairly bold new venture exploring ideas of trust in design as it applies across the board from the environment to the economy, summarised quite well by Paul Hawken’s statement in The Ecology of Commerce and Natural Capitalism:
“We don’t have an economic problem, we don’t have an ecological problem, we have a design problem.”
But more on that soon. For now, here’s to the promise of the New Year, and remember:
“The idea is the machine that makes the art” – Sol Lewitt
Related posts:
- Competition: Big Ideas for Boston Boston is a city very close to my heart. It...
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
Comments
Leave a Reply
